Talk:Serpent Column

Untitled

Clearly the 13th reference item given for the source of the story about Mehmet II's vandalism of the serpent's jaw discusses the issue at length and concludes that the story is apocryphal. Indeed here is a paragraph which is at the top of the page 172 of that article:

All these culprits are exonerated by Kemal-Pashazade's note of the early i6th century, and the story blaming Mehemmed II-apparently unknown to Kemal- Pashazade, and not traceable beyond the Turkish source of the Annales (written nearly a century after the fall of Constantinople)-seems to be merely the first version of a repeatedly revised dragoman-legend. It is indeed implicitly contra- dicted by the report of Angiolello (who, taken prisoner by the Turks at Negroponte in I470, was in the service successively of Prince Mustafa and Mehemmed II) that the Sultan was solicitous to preserve the Column by destroying a mulberry-tree growing at its base.

By the way I take offense in that a source clearly arguing a story to be false is given as a source testifying to the truth of a story. Someone either does not understand what s/he reads or has a political agenda of showing one of the most interesting people in Turkish history as a vandal and a barbarian. Not withstanding the fact that the guy caused the deaths of thousands of people... 66.65.42.76 (talk) 06:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Question

I have heard the story that the names of some of the cities taking part at Plataea can still be read on the column. Is this the case, and if so where - I have seen the column many times but never seen the names. --5telios (talk) 08:02, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

They are almost illegible as you can see for yourself here [1]. You can find a full publication either in Dittenberger's SIG, 31 (it is also in Musaios) or in Russell Meiggs, David Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C, Clarendon Press 1989, pp. 57-59 with an adequate commentary. In the Papahatzis edition of the Phokika by Pausanias (ekdotiki Athinon) there is a nice reconstruction of the whole monument and some additional commentary on the inscription --Giorgos Tzimas (talk) 12:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposed reworking of this article

The article has good detail and a fair range of references. However, it also has several major problems:

• There's too much info on the Battle of Plataea which has it's own well-referenced article of roughly 10,000 words. I suggest trimming coverage in this article to just enough info to provide context for the creation of the Serpent Column.
• A large portion of the article relates mentions of the column by ancient writers. I think this content would be more helpful if reorganized to place the history of the column at the center, with the quotes from ancient sources used to illustrate that. In particular, that's going to be a lot more accessible for a reader without a deep background in classical sources.
• Many of the article's references are directly from ancient sources. That's good where the article is reporting the statements from those sources, but the article would do better to reference more modern analysis.
• References and explanatory footnotes are co-mingled; there's wide variation in the precision of the referencing; and very few links to web versions of these references. I suggest separate sections for Footnotes (if needed), References (using the shortened footnote style); and Sources.
• Amusingly, the Current Status section covers the period from 345/4 BC to 1700. These historical descriptions of the monument and changes to it would be best covered in the context of the earlier history sections. I'd like to add some material on modern scholarship and its current role in tourism, etc.
• Once we know what's going in the Sources section, we can likely trim the Further Reading section or provide more context for these entries.
• We could do with some additional illustrations, better linked to the revised text. An image of a recreation of the original would be ideal, but it might be hard to find a free version.

The suggestions above are no small job, so I imagine these changes might happen slowly. Input from other editors would be very welcome. Rupert Clayton (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good - go ahead. Many of the points above can be done fairly quickly. Johnbod (talk) 20:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I edited the Battle of Plataea section a bit ago only because it was one huge paragraph, pronoun references were unclear, etc. (some of my pet peeves). I was not focusing on the larger context (lesson learned!) You are absolutely right about the article focus, and the fact that there is already a Battle of Plataea article etc. Sounds like you know what you are doing, so you have this editor's full endorsement. Peacedance (talk) 22:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks both for your support. I'll start on some of the easier fixes and see what other comments accrue. Your edits to the Plataea section were welcome, Peacedance, and I'll try not to hack that excessively. Rupert Clayton (talk) 23:12, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

• Dropping by because of this.
  I agree in general. Illustrations, e.g. one providing a reconstructed view would be nice but no such luck hitherto. Also sure, more recent sources are needed but keep the ancient ones (on which I can, in due time, do more work apart from what I've just done).
  As others have already said Rupert, go ahead... Thanatos|talk|contributions 13:49, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

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